IT WAS that 88p for a bath plug that condemned Home Secretary Jacqui Smith for ever in my eyes.

So yes, she was filling her boots by claiming £116,000 on her Redditch home while alleging her sister’s box room was her first residence, and yes, she was breaking the spirit of the law by grabbing domestic goodies for what is clearly her family home.

I can forgive all that because we know that, here in Britain, our Parliamentary representatives are on the make.

If Ms Smith’s perfectly legal milking of the system has shocked you, you must have been out of the country for years.

As for her old man and his mucky movies – that’s a mere bagatelle, the source of a bit of leg-pulling along the way, but nothing more. Half the male population indulge themselves this way.

But to charge 88p for a bath plug indicates a rare meanness, the penny-pinching greed of an ungenerous mind.

Despite all her accumulated hardware, she still felt an 88 pence plug was her due. They’re a spiritually bankrupt pair, this husband and wife.

I loathe the tight-fisted who pause and ponder every penny spent. Smith’s behaviour hit home with me because I splash out cash like a drunken sailor on shore leave.

I actually enjoy writing cheques.

What difference could 88 pence make to this overpaid politician promoted beyond her abilities? What was in her head as she permitted her husband to write the claim form she was to sign.

Did they discuss that plug, I wonder. Did her husband think “88 pence, eh? Let’s try it on.”